Squarespace vs WordPress: Website builder comparison

Squarespace and WordPress are great tools for business owners looking to launch their brands online or for people trying to start a personal website.

We’ve tested both options – and a whole load of others – to help you decide which brand is best for you.

Obviously, different people and businesses have different needs. For that reason, we’ve tested Squarespace and WordPress thoroughly so that we can provide advice and recommendations across a range of the most important features.

Squarespace vs WordPress: Key takeaways

Take a look at the summaries of Squarespace and WordPress below to get an idea of each brand’s strengths. If you want even more information, keep reading below.

Before you jump into our analysis though, it’s worth noting that Squarespace and WordPress do operate quite differently.

Wix is a pure website builder that allows users to automate the website-building process. WordPress, on the other hand, is a CMS platform.

In a nutshell: Wix is a more accessible option, whereas WordPress has the potential to offer a much higher level of flexibility.

From £12/month

Squarespace: Best design-focused builder

Squarespace has built its brand to focus on high-quality aesthetics, with those working in the creative industries likely to be impressed. For newcomers with less experience, it may be the better choice.

Review

From £3/month

WordPress: Most flexible website solution

WordPress offers an enormous amount of flexibility that can make it the best choice for any online platform. However, it can be a more complex experience that may not suit newcomers.

You can compare Squarespace, WordPress and a range of other options on our best website builder page.

Squarespace vs WordPress: Feature comparison

The information we’ve already provided might have given you enough to make your choice already. It’s always worth making sure, though.

In the following sections, we’ve compared Squarespace and WordPress across a variety of features, focusing on the ones that we think matter most.

You know better than anyone what you need from your website – whether you’re launching one for a business or a personal brand – so pay particular attention to the sections that reflect your needs best.

Ease of use

Ease of use is always important, especially if you’re new to website creation. For anyone building a site for the first time, having an easier-to-use platform will be at the top of your list of wants.

When it comes to Squarespace and WordPress, there are a few similarities to be aware of – including the availability of drag-and-drop editing and tools for automating processes – as well as several differences.

The primary difference between the two brands is how you use them. As a pure website builder, Squarespace is managed from a single dashboard that allows you to create a site and manage it.

On the other hand, WordPress is a CMS platform. It does offer simple website builder functionality, but many features and tools require more manual steps.

WordPress is popular in large part thanks to its plugin ecosystem. When used correctly, it offers an enormous amount of flexibility and functionality, but it also requires some know-how.

If you’re looking for ease of use then Squarespace is the better pick for you.

Prices

If you are planning to spend as little as possible on your new website, then WordPress is one of the cheapest options around.

For £3 per month, the WordPress.com Starter plan includes a domain and offers an ad-free experience with a few basic features. Squarespace’s cheapest plan costs £12 per month and offers a similar experience.

If you’re planning to build a basic site without too many bells and whistles, WordPress offers the better option for the lowest price.

However, there are differences to be aware of.

With WordPress, you’ll need to pay for the Creator plan, at least, if you want to install plugins on your website. The ability to use plugins is one of the biggest draws for those considering WordPress, so it’s worth bearing in mind the cost.

The more you plan to do with your site, the more you’ll pay with both Squarespace and WordPress.

To sell online, for example, you’ll need to opt for Squarespace’s Business plan, costing £17 per month. To sell online with WordPress, you’ll need to pay £20 per month. Another difference to remember is that WordPress offers ecommerce functionality through WooCommerce, a third-party tool.

	Squarespace	WordPress
Cheapest plan	£12/month	£3/month
Most expensive plan	£35/month	£51/month
Number of plans	4	5

If you want to build a basic website to display content or to advertise your business, the £3 option from WordPress is likely to be a great option.

If you’re planning to create a more advanced site, Squarespace may be preferable. However, that depends on how advanced you want. For truly bespoke or custom building WordPress is likely to still be the better choice.

Templates

Squarespace offers just over 100 designer-made templates for users to choose from. These templates are professionally designed to look good and to provide a high level of functionality. They are also designed with online best practices in mind.

Squarespace’s range of templates is less extensive than some of its direct competitors, such as Wix. But it is still likely to be a broad enough range to provide a solid choice for most people creating a website, either for themselves or for a business.

WordPress offers an enormous number of themes to choose from. WPZoom estimates that there are more than 30,000 options; this is largely because anybody can create templates to be used on WordPress. With Squarespace, this option does not exist.

The benefit of WordPress’s template options is that you can find a template that suits your needs. Indeed, you might feel spoilt for choice. The downside of WordPress’s template system is that you may need to pay a third party to use the template you list best.

With WordPress, you may also need help to make proper use of your template. You’ll need to pay closer attention to how different plugins operate within your template, and to how your site performance is affected. With Squarespace, you don’t need to be concerned about things like this.

SEO

Squarespace provides a range of SEO tools to help you get your website ranking on Google and other search engines. As you begin setting up your website, Squarespace will provide a guide to help you make the correct choices.

Squarespace provides several options that are beneficial for SEO purposes as standard on their paid plans. This includes an SSL certificate and mobile-ready optimisation.

Squarespace also provides access to an SEO dashboard that allows users to monitor traffic, create and edit pages and items on a site, and create crawlable sitemaps.

WordPress operates quite differently. Your experience with SEO on the platform will depend in large part on which plugin you use.

Yoast SEO is probably the most popular option. It provides the tools needed to optimise a website for search engines, including the option to edit metadata, sitemap generation and other features.

Whereas Yoast’s Free plan offers basic functionality, the Premium plan expands on this with more advanced features.

To some extent, choosing between Squarespace and WordPress based on SEO comes down to your level of comfort.

If you’re not experienced at all, then Squarespace’s SEO offering may be preferable, given the streamlined way that optimisation is built into your site creation process. If you have experience, then it’s likely that WordPress will appeal more to you.

Ecommerce

Squarespace offers the option to sell online once you begin paying for its ecommerce-enabled plan. You’ll gain access to the ecom functions you’d expect to find, as well as extra features, such as stock alerts.

Squarespace also offers analytics and professional email options with its ecommerce plans.

You’ll need to pay at least £17 per month for Squarespace’s ecommerce options, or £23 a month to access some of the more advanced features.

Similar to SEO on WordPress, ecommerce operates very differently to Squarespace.

To begin with, you’ll need to use a third-party tool such as WooCommerce to begin to access ecommerce tools.

WooCommerce is a platform designed to work with WordPress. It provides a dashboard within your website where you can manage products, payment options, shipping, and various other features.

There are other ecommerce plugins available on WordPress, so it’s worth looking around to make sure you find the right one

As with other features mentioned on the page, one of the key differences between WordPress and Squarespace is in ease-of-use.

WordPress provides access to a much more advanced ecommerce process overall but is likely to be less accessible for users without experience.

Take a look at our best ecommerce website builders page to compare a wider range of brands.

User reviews

User reviews can be a useful tool for getting a basic indication of how well-liked a product is, though they shouldn’t always be taken at face value.

On Trustpilot, as of July 8th, 2024:

Squarespace scores 1.3 out of 5 stars. Around 1,000 people have reviewed Squarespace with only 14% rating it 5 stars.
WordPress scores 1.8 out of 5 stars. Over 3,000 people have reviewed WordPress with 51% rating it 5 stars.

It’s worth noting the disparity between the number of reviews between the two brands. However, it is also worth noting that a much higher portion of WordPress ratings have given a 5-star rating.

Squarespace vs WordPress: Conclusion

It’s important to bear in mind that Squarespace and WordPress are very different solutions for those looking to build a website.

While Squarespace is a straightforward website builder that streamlines every step of the journey, WordPress is a more flexible CMS system that offers a great deal of flexibility, if you know how to make the most of it.

You can take a look at our one-to-one comparisons below for a summary of which brand wins across the various features.

Ease-of-use: Squarespace is the easier-to-use option.
Price: WordPress offers a cheaper plan overall, but for more advanced sites, Squarespace is probably cheaper.
Templates: WordPress provides access to a far larger number of templates, though Squarespace likely provides a simpler process for using them.
SEO: Squarespace is easier to get to grips with, though WordPress offers more flexibility and is likely the better choice for more experienced users.
Ecommerce: Squarespace is easier to get to grips with and has ecommerce options built-in, though WordPress offers more flexibility through third-party plugins.
User reviews: Squarespace and WordPress come close in overall rating, though WordPress pulls ahead based on the number of 5-star ratings.

There is no clear winner when you compare Squarespace and WordPress. The main difference comes down to how easy each platform is to use.

Squarespace is a better choice for anyone looking for a simple, streamlined experience. WordPress is the right choice for a person or business looking to create a more advanced website, though it may take more getting used to.

Bryn Glover

Bryn is the founder and editor of WebsiteJumpStart. He has worked in the digital field for over a decade and was editor for Startups.co.uk - the UK's leading small business website - and for NerdWallet UK before launching WebsiteJumpStart to help people and businesses get online with ease.

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